Blind Eye
by MessengerOfDreams
Summary: Being human is never as simple as you think. AU. For LadyPaprika
**This is a birthday gift that is odd to call such because I only realized it was their birthday after I had written this, yet somehow I knew the spirit of this woman was in every word I wrote, so when it connected it just made sense that this should be dedicated, and then perfected, for her. It's the kind of story I wish I could write more of, maybe a new direction. There have been a lot of writers I admire, and you can see that in how I write, because in some ways I emulate them. In some ways I wish I could become them but instead I've become me, and in phases I've become a cobblestone of many different authors on this website who have inspired my writing with their skills and their friendship.**

 **I've spoken at length about people like Tune and Araceli, two of the most important women in my life, and I've spoken at other times about people like Jimbo who write things diametrically opposed to me that I try on for size, and legends like Byoshi who just seem so far ahead of me that it makes me envious. However, there's someone that has always felt so close yet so far away to me as far as writing goes, someone who writes things that speaks to me. Pieces that, even as they tackle the ugliest of sentiments, turn out as beautiful, as human, as real as the author who writes that. I regret never having mentioned her to the extent as I have Tune and Ace, because it's not a duo, it's a triad.**

 **As I get older, I've in ways gotten more jaded- the idealism and the adventure that others have drilled into me has in some ways faded and become spices, not the main dish. Instead, I've started craving the ability to write like this special someone, who has probably been the most down-to-earth writer I've met on this site, and I hope that this doesn't come across as an imitation, but a tribute, and a thank-you, because if you like my writing, just like those I've mentioned, it's just as much because of her as it is anyone else.**

 **Lady Pap, this one's for you.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing, and let them forget nothing.**

To say that I don't get people is an understatement.

The disconnect between myself and the rest of the human race is obvious, at least enough so that most people keep their distance and formality around me. I usually prefer that. The bar's not a place for socializing, it's a place to drink. It's fascinating to see others form these connections out of thin air, throwing themselves to the wind, taking so much out of so little. It's not like me to be able to tell the story of others, so I view it how I can. It's a system. I like systems. I like the ideas of paths converging like wires in a computer, like roads on a map, like the imaginary lines that turn far-off stars into comforting constellations. It's a system I wasn't in until I met you.

I ration my drinks out to a scientific level. I want a buzz to loosen my skin, skin that feels as airtight and restraining as a straightjacket. I don't want to be drunk enough to risk losing control. I don't breathe until I drink, but I drown if I drink too much. I guess it might just be the drinks, but it only takes a couple until I can start reading your story- it's deadly clear on your own face, and new lines are written each week.

"You gonna drink that?" You ask, and my internal evaluation shatters in place. I look a little shaken up, but if you care, and that's a heavy _if,_ you don't note it.

"Undecided," I say. "You're certainly not, however. You want to drink yourself sick, it won't be on my dollar."

You smirk. "Yes, ma'am." Your cup is empty, and I realize I forgot to count refills. I used to hate missing details like that, especially when it came to you, but sometimes details become self-evident and repetitive. The more you drink, the more you talk, and every detail stays lodged in my brain, as you become my new case, one that's uncharacteristically freelance.

You look over at me, and it takes me a second to notice. Not surprising- even I can admit I'm human on the outside, Chozo on the inside. Most people only tolerate my alien nature- you can't get enough of it. Sometimes I feel scrutinized under your microscope, but at least it's interest and attention. Eventually, I snap to and turn to face you, nearly whipping you with a ponytail I haven't released in days.

"Present," I say, a little too defensively.

You're still smirking, and I have half a mind to wet a napkin and wipe it off your face like a dry erase board. You've got gray whiskers sticking out of your face that seem as amused as the rest of you. You're unkempt, a transparent mess of gray hair and confidence in a body molded by a career of danger that's seen better days than most of the kids here but far worse days than most will ever know.

You seem to have forgotten what to say, so I start waiting as you think, staring straight ahead because I'm told eye contact makes you seem human. I doubt I seem any more human than a robot performing a scan. I still gather information, because even someone with a life so much like my own seems galaxies away from anything else I've experienced. I see people, and I see their surface details. Your surface is identical to mine- wryly amused, cynical, impartial to the fault of indifference, and holding onto something they thought they wanted but lost. Yet, all I can do is try and read you for details beyond that, trying to find myself in your eyes, sunken and sorrowful under cocky, jagged eyebrows and over that smirk I can't break.

"Why do you stare at me like that?" It's supposed to be amused, but you care. I like when you care. It makes me envious that you can express that while I regress further into my shell. I fill my time with thousands of unspoken words as I justify every emotion you've pulled out of me. I'm caught in the spotlight I thought would never shine at me. I'm waiting for a snarky remark. You usually follow it up with one, and I've answered every one of them with external lies and internal truths.

" _Do I look like that much of a wreck?" Yes, very often so, and it's starting to worry me._

" _Someone knock a few wires loose today?" Probably, wouldn't surprise me. At least it's just an occupational hazard for me, you've lost that excuse._

" _Am I just that dead sexy?" Depends on how much I've drank to be able to admit that to myself._

" _You falling in love over there?"_

 _No comment._

Not commenting is exactly what you're doing. I'm starting to wonder if I should have counted your drinks. You seem sober enough to care. You care enough that I notice your impatience as I search through empty file cabinets for an answer. Internal storage is maxed out on useless details so I have little room for outgoing delivery. I shrug once, which to me is the equivalent of flailing out of deep water because I've forgotten how to swim through the motions. It's clearly not enough because you're still staring, watching me drown. All I can do is try and finish my scan because I see something familiar. New scars. The more you drink, the less you hunt, yet the scars keep multiplying, as if every mistake you make breeds with the next.

"Wolf," I ask. "I thought you said you were retiring."

You blink, and the skin stripped away by fingernails sharp as claws moves up with it. "Basically am," you admit. "Haven't been on the job for a couple of weeks, praise the Lord."

I don't look away, but I can't stop staring at the newest injury you can't justify, and neither can I. I can rationalize a criminal. Dangerous, selfish, little to lose, all too aware of the price tag choking them. My rationalization of other humans, however, fails me.

I place my finger just below the scar and you tear away, found out. Still, I say, "this is newer than a couple of weeks."

You close your eyes. I feel the excuses flow through you as I reach for your hand, which has turned into a fist that I fear would hit yourself as hard as she has. Your hairs stand on end in a wave that lead to your mouth, but stop short. Your whiskers freeze, locked around a frown desperate to open up and fill yourself with enough alcohol to make this a moot point, white noise. Your tension stabs my hand with every hair and all I can do is take another drink to relieve my own tension. They call it liquid courage, and I've never really gotten it until now.

"Look, don't worry," you say after far too long. "I just got into a fight. Shit happens."

"With her."

You pull your hand away, and I nearly chase it like it's a worm on a hook and I'm starving for anything, risks be damned. "It's not your problem, Sam," you explain. "I got pissed at her over… fuck if I remember. I'd knock the shit out of me for half the shit I say anyways."

You have to be reading the exasperation in my eyes, enough so that I don't even have to say the shit I'm scared to say. I wish I could consider her just a criminal- I'll admit I've done my research on her as if she were. To me, she's something worse. To you, she's an angel. I've probably said enough shit about her in my own head that if you warrant a punch or a slap from her, she'd have me dead in my tracks, if I didn't "apprehend" her first.

I'm sick of spilling my turmoil through my own eyes, so I look away. Shiny, happy, people. People who don't need to worry if they drink too much. People who meet other people and have a connection worth a damn in a few hours, not in several months. People who can solve emotional problems with obvious answers that haven't appeared to me. All I want to do is pretend I'm them. I see you and it's the closest I feel to normal, because you're making me feel.

I see you drink, and I want to tell you to stop when you've had as much as I've experimented to find is okay. I see your scars, and I want to patch them up, to show you more than words that you don't deserve to wear them. I see other people chat, flirt, and make jokes, and I know that they don't get us, whatever "we" are. They don't get that we joke about death because it takes the power away from something we face just to put food on the table and beer in the fridge. They'll never get that we drink to break the shackles around us. They don't get that we keep a distance not out of fear, but out of unspoken flaws. I have never prepared myself to connect with someone, and you've never prepared yourself to break a connection.

They don't get that it's never disgust we have towards them, though we play it off as such. It's ugly, petty jealousy. It's how I've waited for so long for you to drink enough for you to abandon the hatred and disgust she reflects into you and put your hand on my waist just like every lovestruck thrillseeker in this bar does with every pretty, normal, put-together, human woman that catches their eye, crossing each other's paths in a perfect, overlapped system that just leaves us, two lines that fall into a chasm like a broken bridge, going nowhere but down.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, but I don't look back because the envy hurts me as much as it would hurt you. I don't want your hand to leave. The fact that I'm worth the consideration makes it easier to breathe. You deserve to be touched like this, instead of the hate you take and interpret as love.

"Seriously," you say. "Don't worry. Just drink up and enjoy yourself."

I don't have words yet, so I take your advice. I face my beer, which has gotten lukewarm and stagnant. I down it almost against my will, hoping it gives me enough words. At this rate, I've drunk enough to be okay, but I keep looking at your eye, surrounded by the point where internal suffering meets external character, and I know it's not enough. It's enough for normal. It's enough for okay. It's enough to lie to myself and say either of those options are suitable.

"Another drink," I ask the bartender. To the average eye, he doesn't react outside of doing his job, but I can see the details that people wish they could hide. He flinched the moment I asked for a third drink, but ultimately he has no problem obliging. Most customers come here once, because once is all they need. I wish one was enough for us, because I missed my chance, and you found your one time with someone else.

"Someone's getting loose tonight," you joke. I smirk and angle a shoulder out of my loose t-shirt, the one you placed your hand on earlier. You laugh like it's a joke, and I pretend it's all humor as well. I take my first drink of beer number three and already feel the change settling through. It's enough to make me talk. Mistakes happen.

"I actually remember getting an injury like that," I point out, and you flinch just like the bartender, only far, far more obviously.

"Oh, shit," you reply, biting your lip hard enough to draw blood. You recover with "Gotta hear it."

"Careful with the, uhm, lip there," I blurt quietly enough to turn it into a passive note, just enough for you to fake a smile. "Anyway, yeah. I did a case on this bank robber. Like, solo bank robber. And just a kid at that, hit up three different banks."

"I caught that one," you say, visibly thinking. "Little prick called himself Sonic, right? Fast enough to get out with a bundle of cash before the police got there, cocky enough to brand himself?"

I nod. I'm not surprised to hear you call him a little prick. Criminals are always an easy outlet for your anger. At least, I expect them to hit back.

"And you caught the bastard?" You continue, impressed enough to make me turn slightly red. "Check you the hell out!"

"Yeah, that was me," I say. "Uhm, thanks." Funny how a twenty-thousand dollar reward and a spot in the newspapers don't make me feel as proud as your respect.

"You earned it," you reply, visibly relaxed. "I wanted to get at the bastard. So did a lot of my buddies. Then he was gone as fast as he showed up. Way to outrun him."

"You're going to flatter me to death," I say, nudging his leg with mine. I see a twinkle in your eye but I don't know how long it'll stay, or if I want it to go. "Anyway, yeah, the injury." You lean your chin on your hand, eager to listen. These tricks, the genuine interest, the compliments, the cocky humor, they'd work on so many women, and I wish the fact that you still employed them on me meant anything. At the very least, these stories are enough to get your interest.

"So I did a little underground work. Turns out a lot of other small time criminals, hated the kid. Hated the thunder he brought, hated the crackdowns on robbery that screwed over the minor league criminals. I ask them for info, and let the cops handle them. Like I was never there. I learn from them where Sonic was supposed to go next and I meet him there. Apparently being a fast runner doesn't mean he's a quick thinker, because the first thing the moron does when I brandish the gun is throw his luggage of dough at me."

You start laughing, but catch yourself and say "Shit, I'm sorry. That sucks."

I shrug and smile. You have to know it's been months since it happened, so I take it as flattery. "No, it's okay. It's funny. I mean, he has a gun he used to rob the bank and-"

"He throws literally the entire reason he was there at you. When he could just fucking shoot you."

"Exactly!" I reply, and you laugh again.

"Jesus, what a dumbass," you snort, in a drunken giggle zone. "His ass was worth twenty grand?"

"I don't question the check," I reply smoothly. I like how I sound. It reminds me of you on your best days. "I mean, my eye was swollen shut on impact, and something caught just below my eye on the skin that cut right through. And I still shot him in the leg. Twice, for good measure."

"Daaaaaamn," you reply, still snickering. This story has brought you to life. Even retired, I know you've never quite left the job, even in your own mind. I've accepted being your last trace of addiction, the window into the world you left.

"He still tried to run away," I add. "Wasn't that a sight to see."

You snort again. "I wish all my jobs were that cut and dry. I'd take a black eye to shoot him myself, no paycheck required. Fucking throwing shit at someone like a caveman. If he had any balls he'd have gotten in your face instead of running like a bitch."

I nod, and my smile becomes more subdued, and then fades away. I was waiting for a comment like this. I don't know why I needed to know how she did it. It just makes me angrier that it's somehow a nobler crime than a dumb kid trying to escape.

You take another drink and I get to work on my beer, having forgotten it during the conversation. It feels nice in here. I could just end it here. Ending with a smile is so tempting. I look at your eye again, and it all evaporates into mute fury that someone could take who you are and do that. I see the mark of another criminal, and it could turn me blue choking on my own disgust. I used to wonder what's true with you and what isn't, but every time you talk about her, you give her as much love as you hate yourself for your own faults. Not every wrongdoing is a crime worthy of a shot to the heart.

"I'm dead curious," you interrupt my thoughts before they get worse. "Shit like that, these bullshit criminals, just pisses me off. I mean, I drink to forget 'em, but whenever I hear of them I wanna get my gun out and put 'em in their place. It's kind of disgusting just how much they just piss me off."

Bold statement from someone always so eager to indulge my stories. You know it's not quite the truth- you just wish it was. Ever since you first mentioned her, you seem desperate to find the right things to say- truth or lies.

I shake my head. "Sometimes you gotta nip shit in the bud. It always seemed simple to me."

"Yeah, I guess…" you say absently. "I just don't know how you joke about it. I wish I could."

I shrug, because it's basic wiring. "I just see them as criminals. I can't take them seriously emotionally. They're dangerous, they hurt people, and people pay me to catch them when they can't. They do whatever they can to get their way. They're not doing anything personal to me. I'm just an obstacle. If they hurt me or they pull shit on me, it's for them, not against me." I take another drink, and it makes me cocky enough to add "not that they've gotten far enough to really leave any damage," which is a damned lie because otherwise I would not be on this planet drinking with you, drinking you in.

"I like that," you reply. "It's solid. Wish I was that way." You finish your beer. I still haven't counted. The bartender takes the empty cup and has it washed and stacked before it can be a lasting factor. I hear the envy for my ambivalence drip from your voice, the very thing that makes me feel separate from everything else but you. I haven't yet learned how to convince you it's not worth it.

"Thanks," I reply, but my stomach tangles me in knots. I don't get why your anger against these emotional nobodies exist. Their problems are not mine. They're easy to apprehend because I don't care. I'm not necessarily on a better plane than them, but we're on a different one. Why do those who don't hurt you make you hate, while those who damage you, you love?

"But you know me," you say. "I just couldn't take it. I only took it in the first place because I was good at it. Enough entrenched bitterness, and I became as bad as them. Just wanted to kill them all after awhile."

I know what you mean. I know why you retired. You've always taken "Wanted Dead or Alive" as a choice, not a direction. I've heard you described as a loose cannon, or corrupt, as someone who tangled themselves in controversy far too complex for their black and white view of the world. Being little more than shades of gray myself, I see someone who isn't the villain they're made out to be, but someone who hurt themselves and made mistakes trying to decide what right and wrong is.

"Which is why you retired," I rationalized.

"More like I got threatened to by the cops," you explain, and it's not a surprise. "Can't blame 'em."

"I'd make that call too," I admit. "I think you should do better for yourself."

You seem to take the words like a punch to the gut, because I can't break eye contact from that accursed scar. You take another drink, as if you're trying to forget what I said, but you can't. You snap your head back, where I'm still staring as if in a trance, devoid of personhood.

"Look, is this shit still about the eye thing?"

I'm as uncomfortable in your stare as you are in mine. I can't think of an excuse- a lie- so I nod.

You sigh. "Look, just... " Just what I should do, I don't think even you know. You find words, and I can't buy them, or maybe just can't believe them. "Don't worry about me. I know what I did. I've said some horrible shit. It's just, all this disgust towards the world, and it all gets funneled into… this." Your speech starts slurring as your defense peters out. "I don't even know if I mean them. I don't think I do. I still… she means a lot to me. She tolerates me and she sticks around. You haven't met her, you know? If you did, I think you'd understand… She's radiant on a good day."

I sigh, and it's heavier than I can bear. I take another drink and notice that for as much as I drink, little drops of water plink back in. Ever since I was too young to form lasting memories, I have seen so many beautiful things self-destruct, succumb to the talons of those too evil to defend, too destructive to forget. I watch it happen again as your words disappear into a drunken mess and it burns me up.

"I've seen you on a good day, too," I offer. _I've stuck around,_ I want to add.

"So to you it makes up for all these bad days?" You retort. Damn it, you anticipated my reply. "I don't get how I'm any different for defending her."

I growl because it doesn't make any sense, and somehow you can't see just how much your own self-destruction hurts me. I cannot possibly be that hard to read. I snap back "You know there are ways to learn anger management that don't involve just taking domestic abuse, right?"

"What the fuck?" The accusation I make is true, but to you it's a scandalous lie. "What the fuck kind of high horse are you coming in on?" The alcohol is nearly visible on your breath as your words make less and less sense, have less meaning but more punch. "Fuckin' brag about shooting all the people you don't care about but I say one thing about my girl and it's suddenly just a moral outrage?" You turn away, nearly spitting in your drink "Domestic abuse, my ass."

Drunk as you are, the point you make almost makes sense, and it certainly hurts. Every compliment you dealt earlier that made me feel momentarily radiant is now poison that paints me as socially incompetent and cold as I feared I was. "You really are an asshole," I spit, drinking my tear-stained beer.

"What are you gonna do about it?" You demand, leaning into my personal space, daring me to become her, become who I hate. I can't. It's not even a possibility. I can't tell if that makes me right, or so very very wrong.

"I just did," I reply, eyes narrowed back into yours. "I called you on it. That's what normal people do."

"Oh, honey," you respond, as if looking me over for new scars and finding none, because they grow internally. "You know as well as I do that we are absolutely not normal people. The rules don't apply to us. You see these people around us? They follow the rules. We're not above or below the rules. We never get to learn them, okay? You're too cold, and I'm too hot. You don't get it, and I get it way too well."

I have no clue what kind of false wisdom you think you're spewing, but I can't get it to go out the other ear as fast as it went in the first. "You know what, Wolf," I respond, trying to keep my cool as if hissing my discontent makes it less alarming to others as screaming it would. "Ever since we started getting acquainted, all I've gotten is that we deserve to be human as much as anyone else. We just can't stand to take it."

"I wish I could be as dumb as you," you respond, and I flinch. I don't know if a demonstration is what you intended, but it's what I got. I wish I could slap some sense into you, but I can't. I won't. For whatever reason, I can't hurt you like you wish you could hurt everyone else to keep them away from you. I don't know if this makes me right or wrong. I try and imagine being your girlfriend, hearing these words and being too stupid to know the pain and self-loathing they came from, but all I can think of is that if she cared like you think she would, she wouldn't take it by hurting you back. She'd try and figure it out, or she'd leave you in your own disaster. I've taken option one, even as option two seems far healthier.

Am I the only one who gets it? Or am I really just that stupid?

"Check, please," you accidentally shout at the bartender. He cringes, watching a few other people turn around at the noise. You're embarrassing yourself- being stupid and vulnerable to me is one thing because I'll rationalize it. Now everyone sees it, and little things like these are hard to forget if you don't prepare yourself for it. You can't leave like this- not here, not now. I can't let you do this to yourself.

"Fuck," you mutter, already exhausted from your own fervor. "I just can't…"

I grab your arm as tight as I can. This isn't affection like before, this is possession, this is desperation. This is trying to fix something with a sledgehammer. "Please don't leave," I choke. "This doesn't have to go like this."

You shake your head, already flushed with shame and, with alarming force, yank your arm from underneath my grasp. I feel my nails dig in by mistake or design, and suddenly I'm grasping nothing but my own fist, nails sharper than I knew was possible.

You hold up your arm, and remorse hits me like a punch to the eye. "See?"

"I'm sorry," I insist. "I'm so sorry."

You shake your head, and your eyes are closed. "No," you say. "This is just how it goes." As you walk away, still blind even with eyes opened, you mumble "I'm sorry."

The chill of the night hits me as, in an instant, the door opens and closes, leaving me alone, my line cast for the connection I took aim at too late, and now I have nothing to connect it to. I imagine you home, drunk, igniting more fires I have no clue how to put out, because I am not human. Not yet. All I can do is finish my drink and silently leave my money on the counter. I take a passing glance at the people, these normal people, and at once I resent and envy them for not understanding us. I wonder if they do. I hope they don't.

I leave without a trace, disappearing into the night. I'll be back, new arguments and attempts to separate you from your own machinations prepared. I may not be human, but I know that even if love can be established in one night, doesn't mean it can be destroyed in one night as well.


End file.
